Zeitschrift für Proteomik und Bioinformatik
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Probing of Phytofungal Proteins for Fungicidal Activity by Molecular Docking

Pooja Mishra, Murugesh Eswaran, Nitya Meenakshi Raman and Tanushri Kaul

Background: Plant fungal diseases are the primary causes of foliage and crop loss eventually affecting the overall economic outcome and yield quality. Hence, various chemical compounds are employed to eradicate the fungi in agriculture.

Methods: Virtual screening and molecular docking strategies provide themselves as great alternatives to find lead compounds. Lead compounds for each fungal infection was docked to target protein sequence and assessed for the strongest interaction.

Findings: Various molecules were taken under the study, for being the target ligands to bring about a fungicidal reaction in the plant pathogen system. The screening of molecules was done thoroughly to produce the results. Ligands identified through this study allow us to make plant host fight against the fungal pathogen and prevent the occurrence of the disease. The interactions have been thoroughly studied with various softwares like SPDBV and PyMol and through various online databases like STRING, GenePept, PDB, UniProt, PatchDock, Protein structure prediction server -2 and others for the overall evaluation of the drug molecule designed and to study its overall effects for the overall higher efficacy and to prevent the occurrence of the fungal disease and management of the fungal pathogens in agriculture against various economically valuable plants. The lead compounds revealed several hydrophobic and polar contacts were demonstrated by comparing interactions.

Applications: The molecular affinity of the fungicidal compound has been tested against the target pathogen as well as the host system components to understand the interaction and to draw out the functioning and the analysis. The compatibility between the molecule and the protein has been studied to decipher the effectiveness of the molecule and its effects in the system. The present results let us establish lead compounds that can be used for the development of antifungal drugs although structural activity relationship studies have to be undertaken.